Hi ginger ...so that's where you have been ...boy you sure get around ...I agree re the pizza oven, I am married to a born in Italy Australian and our BBQ is ok but boy oh boy do those Pizza oven work wonders with way more than pizzas ...what about bread, meat ...sausages, you name it.Sad to say I have a huge brick BBQ ...big enough to cook a cow in as well as a 6 burner BBQ with cover ...hardly use them.
The Brick and tiled giant BBQ came with the house ...????? it's only 10ft from the septic tank so no I don't use it except for a heatbank in my secret garden (it keeps the tropicals warm).
The other is so big I only use it when there is a crowd.
This is for you ...welcome home ^_^http://www.diypizzaovens.com.au/

I certainly hope you got around to building your oven, there's a pretty solid following for here in Australia! You should (if you haven't already) check out Forno Bravo - they offer a set of 100% free pizza oven plans which are very much worth looking at. Check out http://www.melbournefirebricks.com.au for materials.

Ginger, if your library has it, Kiko Denzer's "Build Your Own Earth Oven" is very good, and easy to follow.

There was a brickworks here that is in the process of closing down, as the property is apparently worth better money as real estate than they're making from bricks. They were selling fire bricks, and because we were not really ready for them, I procrastinated in buying them. The next thing I drove past one day and much of their yard had been flattened over the weekend. I enquired about whether I was still able to get fire bricks, buth they'd apparently been crushed. :(

The chap there did tell me though that for some time they'd been selling regular solid clay bricks for the purpose. They're apparently fired at 1000 degrees anyway, which is likely to be considerably hotter than an oven would get anyway, so may be worth considering if refractory bricks turn out to be dreadfully expensive.

We have a gardening show on TV in Melbourne called "Vasili's garden" and his show is from ordinary backyards...where people
have the veggies, grapevines, fruit trees and so on...well it's amazing how many people have homemade Pizza ovens and what they do cook in them...

So we will look forward to watching each step in the building of Ginger's homemade Pizza oven...Have fun.

We could learn a lot from these gardeners ... they are almost self sufficient food wise, but it's the love of their gardens that inspires me. These people came from places where if you didn't grow your food you starved, this was the same for many of our grandparents too.
The big difference is that overseas they had to store much of their foods for the snowy extended Winters so in the warm months it was working from dawn to dusk in the garden and pushing the growth as hard as possible to ensure food stores for those Winters to com. This mostly fell to the women as the husbands were usually gone off to work.
Here we even have food growing in Winter and these people feel like they have come to paradise. I so admire them.
Vasili shows us how they not only grow their food but how they preserve it.

When I first posted it 3 years ago.
I asked if anyone was interested in seeing some Pictures of the Pizza Oven progress.
I did not go ahead as there was only one reply from Chrissy.

I have been in Tully for the past 5 months doing Cyclone relief help.
I originally went up there for one weeks voluntary work.
But one week dragged into one month and on and on.
I started out helping around the township of Tully. (no building, only clearing trees)
But as time went on I moved slowly west.
One only had to drive less than a kilometre to find more destruction.
My help consisted mainly of tree lopping and tree removal from roads and tracks.

The hardest part wad I had to live in my two man tent for 5 months as there was no accommodation.
The first two weeks of camping was quite fun.
But that soon wore off.

Anyway, I'm back and now my own garden is in desperate need of a big clean up.

I will post the Pizza Oven Pictures during this week if there is still interest ?

Hi Ginger ! happy to see you back ...wow you really do get around, yes I would love to see some pics of your pizza oven and a thread with pics of your wanderings in a new thread too.
Just curious are you from America ? I can't remember why I thought you might be, perhaps another Ginger over there.
Anyway it's great to have you back ...poor Tully huh? ...poor QLD.
Glad to hear things are happening up there to aid these flood victims.

chrissy100 wrote:Just curious are you from America ? I can't remember why I thought you might be, perhaps another Ginger over there.
Anyway it's great to have you back ...poor Tully huh? ...poor QLD.
Glad to hear things are happening up there to aid these flood victims.

Yes there is an American Ginger. They are not very active though.
And because the name was taken I became Ginger749. ;o)
And I have never been to the US of A.
We have much better National Parks here in Australia.

The slab on the left was to become my Pizza Ovens new home.
I decided to add another step to the Veranda Steps.
They were a tad steep as they were.
And I wanted them to finish beyond the front of the Pizza Oven.

Yes Seachange,
That is a Jungle out to the left.
Some of my later preogress Pictures do show that area a bit more.
That is where I took the Pictures of my Spangled Drongo.
You can read the story here:- http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1157650/

Thanks Chrissy for the links.
But I finished the Oven more than two years ago.
And yes, I freeformed the dome.
Pictures of that stage will follow in their right order.
I will just add this Picture to show that it really is finished.

Now to talk my Italian born hubby into one ...trouble is he still works (supposed to be semi retired) almost all the time so I may be waiting a while.
Congratulations you must love using it, do you make breads and roast things in it too?

Because I wanted an arched doorway to the wood storage area underneath.
It caused me a few structural problems.
But I feel it looks way better than the square doorways.
I used ¾ deformed 'reo' bars to hold it all together.
They also go right down into the side walls to further tie it all together.
The rest of the suspended floor will also tie into this arch with four reo bars. (next lot of Pictures)

gardengal wrote:One thing's for sure, with all that reinforcing in there it's never going to fall apart.
Just out of curiosity, have you ever had a thermometer in there to see how hot it actually gets?
Pam

Without reo, the concrete will definitely crack and break up in time.
I once built an incinerator to burn household rubbish.
It lasted 12 months before it totally fell apart.
I now use a 44 gallon steel drum.

I have taken temperatures inside the Pizza Oven.
900deg C when fully heated.
The door thermometer was reading over 700. C
But I don't cook at those temperatures.
That is only to preheat the Oven.

All the coals are dragged out and the Oven is left to equalise.
Cooking can start at 450deg C.
A Big Pizza only takes two minutes too cook.
At that temperature I can cook 20 Pizzas.

The arch was left to dry for three days.
Then boxing was stripped and work began on props for main suspended slab.
This slab needed to be 7 inches thick.
It needs to be this thick to retain heat for approx 5 hours cooking.

That sounds like lots of fun, especially after the Rhubarb wine...but in all honesty the thought of that huge snake still being around and getting bigger, worries me a bit...do you have any chickens or pets now?

A special fire cement is used to glue these bricks to the floor.
The temperature inside the Oven can reach 1200 deg C.
These bricks will take a temperature more than 2200 deg C.
Without bellows I will never see this high temperature.

I have been reading a lot about Harold Lasseter.
Can Yall imagine being the first person to find Harold's treasure ?
Harold's son, Bob, who is now 85 years old has made 30 expeditions into the Australian Heart to try to find Lasseter's Reef.
But would a father really tell his 5 year old son where to find 'the treasure' ?
I think not.

I saw a documentry about it many many years ago ...fascinating.
Are you going to have a bit of a look around ?
My Uncle bought back a bag full of Opals from Lightening Ridge and he also has a collection of saphires (can't remember where they came from) I wish I had paid more attention to his stories as a child ...but being kids we just wanted to see his magic tricks.

My thoughts on Australia's reef of Gold is that it is probably on sacred ground and covered in tons of sand, like all self respecting treasures :).

Ginge, when you go to WA will you be looking at plants or rocks? I recently came accross a page that provides several itineraries for self-drive wild flower tours of the south western corner. Let me know if you'd like the link.

Pam, My main reason for going to look for LLR is to get rich.
But I will still be taking lots of Plant Pictures during my trip.
I won't be going for at least a year.
And yes, I would be very interested in your link.

Chris, Try stopping me from sending/posting Pictures of my journey.
As long as I am standing upright I will be taking Pictures. ^_^ ^_^

It was now time to form the outer door-way arch. (not fire bricks)
This arch must not touch the inner dome or arch in any way.
I left a 20 mm gap.
The inner dome can expand up to 15 mm during a big firing.
And if the two arches were joined the whole outer shell and arch would simply crack.

I can almost smell the pizza cooking from here. A couple of quick questions - the blue plastic, does that actually stay inside the wall? And did you use high-alumina cement /fire cement or just GP for the majority of the build?

Can anyone remember the 'Big Dust Storm' we had in 2009 ?
I took this Picture on the 23 of September the day our world seemed to go crazy.
The dust storm lasted a couple of days.
Swimming Pool went pink, Washing got dirty, and Cars got muddy.

France huh ? wow, my Grand daughter is winging her way back from a year overseas , I can hardly wait to hear all about her adventures ,
France will be wonderful ...please take lots of pictures, will you be exploring over there?
Anything special you want to see while there ?

I have a nephew who bought back a dear little French wife after working in France, he was shocked at the small portions of food they eat ...he says they all smoke and sip a little wine,and hardly ever eat much. That was most surprising because we always think of food when France is mentioned.
Interested to hear how what you think. :)

Ginge, I'm guessing a granite slab might possibly not be as stable (ie suitable) as marble for the base? There's a factory here that makes granite benchtops, and for a brief moment figured an offcut might be suitable ... would it have a risk of cracking?

I will answer Pams question first.
On the contrary, Granite is a far better and stable heat retainer than marble.

Granite (igneous rock) typically consisting of the minerals quartz, feldspar, and biotite mica.
I have the grey type it may also be pink depending on the composition of the feldspar.

Granite is formed when magma (molten rock) is forced between other rocks in the Earth's crust.
It cools and crystallizes deep underground.
As it cools slowly large crystals are formed.

Marble is a porous and inhomogeneous stone. It may crack.
Marble is used in statues, buildings, tomb stones, fireplace mantles, floor tiles, and kitchen counter tops.
Marble is a metamorphic rock (rock that has been altered by heat or pressure).
It is soft and is easy to carve or cut into shapes. (key word here is 'soft')
This is why it is used to make statues.^_^

Chris, I have only been to Paris once.
My DW and I went on a one month tour around France in 1974.
A lot of things have changed there since then.
We rented a car and camped the whole time.
So we did not get to know any of the native custems.

This is a Picture of one of the spare Granite slabs I used in my BBQ while I was building the Pizza Oven.
I would heat it up in the BBQ for one hour at 400 deg. to get it ready.
It works really well.
I had a Marble tile I once put in the BBQ,
It only cracked and broke into many pieces.

Now that is naughty Ginge ...I haven't had time for brekky yet !!!! ^_^
I agree re Granite !

Ginge you have inspired me to make a Sea Change ...pushing my hubby into real retirement in a couple of years.
You are a well travelled man, where would you go to settle in your senior years.
I want an acre or two in a rural area.
Self sufficient as possible.
Any suggestions (NSW) ??? been looking down Berrima and Bundanoon, not 100% sure to go North or South as I don't know these places and can't go look as I am caring for someone.
Hints to google would be most welcome.

Oh and I am sure you will love France, my nephew spent years there. He worked in the fishery science for fish farming.

Thanks for that Ginge. And I'm glad you mentioned the barbecue, as I'd have probably built it in as the floor otherwise.

Totally different subject - we have a 'sizzle stone' (same set up as at the top of the page you linked to, Ginge) and absolutely love it on the odd occasions we bring it out for visitors - produces absolutely delicious food and keeps them entertained, fighting over cooking space. lol

A double layer of silver sarking is placed over the 'Fire Blanket'.
The outer layer of silver paper is painted black.
A layer of Chicken wire is put over the silver sarking to hold the 40 mm layer of 'Vermiculite' in place.
Without the wire, the Vermiculite would simply slide to the base.

Ginge.. the other day I looked at some commercial Pizza ovens and found myself looking for all the details that you have put into this thread...
The commercial ones look so fragile compared with yours...
The thickness of the walls and the width of the actual oven...they looked like cheap imitations.
Congrats again on one heck of an achievement...
That friend in France is very lucky he/she will be the envy of their friends.
Dianne

I'll have a bit more cheese on mine thanks Ginge. Great job. Has been fun watching you build the oven. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us. Enjoy yourselves in France. While you're gone your oven might disappear. lol. Colleen

I'm sorry about teasing you Chris. ^_^
This was the finished Pizza.
It took four of us three minutes to devour this beauty.

Colleen, It would take many people to pick it up and run off with it.
Just make friends with 'Jack' and my son and you could come and use it any time you like.
Just bring your own good quality fire wood.

A couple of weeks after burning it in properly.
I invited a leading Brisvegas Restaurateur/Chef to come and try it out seriously for me.
He and his wife came with nothing but some Indian Pizza toppings.
I learnt a lot about keeping the Oven floor at a constant temp.
A great day was had by all.

Pine is great for starting the fire.
But it does not penetrate the bricks.
I can get the Oven temp. up to 1000 plus in no time with pine.
But it won't hold the heat in for more than around one hour.
As soon as there is a rip/roaring fire in the middle of the floor.
I now begin to slowly introduce the hard wood only.
Iron bark is a very cold burning wood so avoid if possible.
I use mainly Ghost gum or Box.
All cut down from around my own Dam.
This fire is kept up for about four hours.

This particular night there were 16 guests.
I never re stoked the fire once the baking began.
Every one got a turn at tossing and design their own Pizzas.
Supervised by 'she who must be obeyed'.
They even got a try at turning them inside the Oven.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the red hot coals were pushed to the very back of Oven